SAN ANTONIO – It wasn't the blowout win their previous five were, but it will be the one that generates the most discussion around the basketball world.
The Pistons, winners of five straight by an average of 18.2 points, stretched their winning streak to six by spotting the defending champion San Antonio Spurs an 18-point lead, coming back to lead by 10 and then winning it on a Brandon Jennings probing runner with one-tenth of a second to play.
"Just a great team win," Greg Monroe said after the 105-104 win, the first of four games in five nights for the Pistons. "We showed a lot of resiliency. Everybody stayed the course. We stuck together, came in here and beat a really good team."
Resiliency? Yeah, good word for it.
Start with Jennings. Brilliant through the five-game win streak, he had a rough night going. He was 4 of 17 at the time he stuck the winner, though he and backup D.J. Augustin were having great success getting past the first line of San Antonio's defense. Augustin, in fact, had the better night going, finishing with 19 points and five assists in 22 minutes. Jennings was surprised Stan Van Gundy waved him back into the game with three minutes left and the Pistons down a point.
"D.J. really did have it going tonight," Jennings said. "He was making plays. He was getting to the lane and he played better than me tonight, so I was really surprised. If it was up to me – if he would have asked me if I wanted to go back in – I probably would have told him to let D.J. stay in there."
But Van Gundy thought, first, that Augustin was a little gassed and, second, that Jennings was a little more likely to aggressively push the ball in transition, which is where the Pistons had more success for most of the game than against San Antonio's half-court defense.
"So that was my thinking," Van Gundy said. "Up until zero-zero-point-one to go, it didn't look like a very good move. But at point-one, I looked like a genius."
The Spurs uncharacteristically opened the door for the Pistons, first by making only 6 of 12 free throws down the stretch and then – most critically – turning the ball over with eight seconds to play, ahead by a point. Tim Duncan's inbounds pass was a little behind Patty Mills, who saw the ball bounce off his hands to Andre Drummond. Jennings, since re-entering the game late, had just missed two other probing layups, but he didn't have much time to think when he got the ball back with about six seconds to go.
"I was real upset with myself because I missed those two layups I felt I should have made," he said. "My shot wasn't falling, but I just stuck with it. I was like, if anything, on this last shot I'm going to go to the rack and (Andre Drummond) will probably clean it up for us. Once I got to the frontcourt, I was open for the three, but I saw (Boris) Diaw get on the outside. I thought I had a good opportunity to get past him and I just show the floater off the glass."
Jennings had Drummond in mind with good reason – he was dominant, finishing with 20 points and 17 rebounds, and he and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope spearheaded a third-quarter defense that enabled the Pistons to go from nine points down to 10 points up. In fact, from the point in the second quarter when the Pistons trailed by 18, they outscored the Spurs 46-20 at one point.
Cutting the deficit from 18 to nine by halftime was ...
"Huge," Van Gundy said.
"Very important," Monroe agreed. "We knew going in at halftime, we had to go in with a little momentum, especially the way things were going. We kind of changed momentum at halftime, then the beginning of the third quarter we just rode that momentum and were able to take control of the game."
The Spurs scored 37 points in the first quarter, running their offense as crisply as they did in storming Miami to win the NBA Finals in five games. Van Gundy thought the Pistons looked "imtimidated."
"Their speed was too much for us, the pace of the game. We weren't doing what we were supposed to do."
The Spurs scored 38 points in the paint in the first half, the Pistons 20. Tables turned: The second-half numbers were 38-10, Pistons. Monroe added 17 and 11 to Drummond's 20 and 17.
"We came in at halftime and coach made an adjustment," Monroe said. "He told the guys to just keep on turning the corner. He felt like they weren't really stopping the ball early, so he knew if they could get into the paint they would just capitalize."
Van Gundy acknowledged it was a win that required a little bit of good fortune. You don't expect the Spurs, as poised and tested as an NBA team could ever be, to allow any path to victory – not at home, not when they know the stakes of playoff seeding in the competitive West. But he also knows the Pistons earned the victory by putting themselves in position to win – something they wouldn't have managed a few weeks ago, their confidence then at low ebb.
"We're getting better," he said. "I think tonight proved it. We showed really good resolve to stay with the game. You stay in there sometimes, you get a break. Let's face it. We got a very good break at the end. We got lucky at the end. Well, great. But you have to be down one on the road to have that break happen. If you're down 17 and (Mills) fumbles the ball, what? Do you lose by 15? So our resolve to stay the course in the game – right down to the last few seconds – I thought was huge."